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Luck or Cunning

Name: Luck or Cunning
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Samuel Butler

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Luck or Cunning by Samuel Butler

Chapter 1 TO THE MEMORY OF

THE LATE

ALFRED TAYLOR, Esq., &c.

WHOSE EXPERIMENTS AT CARSHALTON

IN THE YEARS 1883 AND 1884

ESTABLISHED THAT PLANTS ALSO ARE ENDOWED WITH

INTELLIGENTIAL AND VOLITIONAL FACULTIES

THIS BOOK

BEGUN AT HIS INSTIGATION

IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

Note

This second edition of Luck, or Cunning? is a reprint of the first edition, dated 1887, but actually published in November, 1886. The only alterations of any consequence are in the Index, which has been enlarged by the incorporation of several entries made by the author in a copy of the book which came into my possession on the death of his literary executor, Mr. R. A. Streatfeild. I thank Mr. G. W. Webb, of the University Library, Cambridge, for the care and skill with which he has made the necessary alterations; it was a troublesome job because owing to the re-setting, the pagination was no longer the same.

Luck, or Cunning? is the fourth of Butler's evolution books; it was followed in 1890 by three articles in The Universal Review entitled "The Deadlock in Darwinism" (republished in The Humour of Homer), after which he published no more upon that subject.

In this book, as he says in his Introduction, he insists upon two main points: (1) the substantial identity between heredity and memory, and (2) the reintroduction of design into organic development; and these two points he treats as though they have something of that physical life with which they are so closely associated. He was aware that what he had to say was likely to prove more interesting to future generations than to his immediate public, "but any book that desires to see out a literary three-score years and ten must offer something to future generations as well as to its own." By next year one half of the three-score years and ten will have passed, and the new generation by their constant enquiries for the work have already begun to show their appreciation of Butler's method of treating the subject, and their readiness to listen to what was addressed to them as well as to their fathers.

HENRY FESTING JONES.

March, 1920.

Author's Preface to First Edition

This book, as I have said in my concluding chapter, has turned out very different from the one I had it in my mind to write when I began it. It arose out of a conversation with the late Mr. Alfred Tylor soon after his paper on the growth of trees and protoplasmic continuity was read before the Linnean Society-that is to say, in December, 1884-and I proposed to make the theory concerning the subdivision of organic life into animal and vegetable, which I have broached in my concluding chapter, the main feature of the book. One afternoon, on leaving Mr. Tylor's bedside, much touched at the deep disappointment he evidently felt at being unable to complete the work he had begun so ably, it occurred to me that it might be some pleasure to him if I promised to dedicate my own book to him, and thus, however unworthy it might be, connect it with his name. It occurred to me, of course, also that the honour to my own book would be greater than any it could confer, but the time was not one for balancing considerations nicely, and when I made my suggestion to Mr. Tylor on the last occasion that I ever saw him, the manner in which he received it settled the question. If he had lived I should no doubt have kept more closely to my plan, and should probably have been furnished by him with much that would have enriched the book and made it more worthy of his acceptance; but this was not to be.

In the course of writing I became more and more convinced that no progress could be made towards a sounder view of the theory of descent until people came to understand what the late Mr. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection amounted to, and how it was that it ever came to be propounded. Until the mindless theory of Charles Darwinian natural selection was finally discredited, and a mindful theory of evolution was substituted in its place, neither Mr. Tylor's experiments nor my own theories could stand much chance of being attended to. I therefore devoted myself mainly, as I had done in "Evolution Old and New," and in "Unconscious Memory," to considering whether the view taken by the late Mr. Darwin, or the one put forward by his three most illustrious predecessors, should most command our assent.

The deflection from my original purpose was increased by the appearance, about a year ago, of Mr. Grant Allen's "Charles Darwin," which I imagine to have had a very large circulation. So important, indeed, did I think it not to leave Mr. Allen's statements unchallenged, that in November last I recast my book completely, cutting out much that I had written, and practically starting anew. How far Mr. Tylor would have liked it, or even sanctioned its being dedicated to him, if he were now living, I cannot, of course, say. I never heard him speak of the late Mr. Darwin in any but terms of warm respect, and am by no means sure that he would have been well pleased at an attempt to connect him with a book so polemical as the present. On the other hand, a promise made and received as mine was, cannot be set aside lightly. The understanding was that my next book was to be dedicated to Mr. Tylor; I have written the best I could, and indeed never took so much pains with any other; to Mr. Tylor's memory, therefore, I have most respectfully, and regretfully, inscribed it.

Desiring that the responsibility for what has been done should rest with me, I have avoided saying anything about the book while it was in progress to any of Mr Tylor's family or representatives. They know nothing, therefore, of its contents, and if they did, would probably feel with myself very uncertain how far it is right to use Mr. Tylor's name in connection with it. I can only trust that, on the whole, they may think I have done most rightly in adhering to the letter of my promise.

October 15, 1886.

Contents

Page

Note, by Henry Festing Jones

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Other books by Samuel Butler

Unconscious Memory

Literature

5.0

The only thing of which I am sure is, that the distinction between the organic and inorganic is arbitrary." So writes Samuel Butler is his work of biological philosophy, Unconscious Memory, where he presents his theories of the mind through the lens of his criticism of established scientific ideas.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler

Literature

5.0

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler by Samuel Butler

The Fair Haven

Literature

5.0

Purporting to be the work of "the late John Pickard Owen" (with a memoir by his brother), this 1873 satire set out to defend Christianity, but was written so subtly, that many readers, critics, and religious alike failed to recognize it as satire at all. While the first edition was written under a pseudonym, Butler revealed his authorship in the second edition, claiming he adopted a pseudonym for Fair Haven so as not to be suspected of satire.

Life and Habit

Literature

5.0

One more point deserves notice. Butler often refers in "Life and Habit" to Darwin's "Variations of Animals and Plants under Domestication." When he does so it is always under the name "Plants and Animals." More often still he refers to Darwin's "Origin of Species by means Natural Selection," terming it at one time "Origin of Species" and at another "Natural Selection," sometimes, as on p. 278, using both names within a few lines of each other. Butler was as a rule scrupulously careful about quotations, and I can offer no explanation of this curious confusion of titles. Since Samuel Butler published "Life and Habit" thirty-three [vii] years have elapsed—years fruitful in change and discovery, during which many of the mighty have been put down from their seat and many of the humble have been exalted. I do not know that Butler can truthfully be called humble, indeed, I think he had very few misgivings as to his ultimate triumph, but he has certainly been exalted with a rapidity that he himself can scarcely have foreseen. During his lifetime he was a literary pariah, the victim of an orga-nized conspiracy of silence. He is now, I think it may be said without exaggeration, universally accepted as one of the most remarkable English writers of the latter part of the nineteenth century. I will not weary my readers by quoting the numerous tributes paid by distinguished contemporary writers to Butler's originality and force of mind, but I cannot refrain from illustrating the changed attitude of the sci-entific world to Butler and his theories by a reference to "Darwin and Modern Science," the collection of essays published in 1909 by the University of Cambridge, in commemoration of the Darwin centenary. In that work Professor Bateson, while referring repeatedly to Butler's biological works, speaks of him as "the most brilliant and by far the most interesting of Darwin's opponents, whose works are at length emerging from oblivion." R. A. STREATFEILD. November, 1910.

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Latest Release: Chapter 20 No.20 08-13 18:46

Chapter 1 TO THE MEMORY OF

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